Blog Synthesis

This year, I took a job as the Academically and Intellectually gifted math teacher at my middle school. Knowing that these children needed to have compelling experiences, this course the Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences seemed to be a good choice. I must admit that when I saw the topics we would be looking at for the course, which included photography, film & television, architecture & interior design, music, and fashion, I was very skeptical about the educational implications of any of these topics. We were asked to make analogical bridges between the work of art of experts in these fields and the work of art of teachers. These bridges were unbelievably easy to make. Although I made each of these connections in separate models, it is also easy to look back and see how they all go together.
What is it that we as teachers strive to for our students? Personally, I want to catch my students attention, keep my students attention, teach my students something, and leave them wanting more. Basically, I want students to enjoy my lessons and learn a lot from them. Just as photographers want people to look at their pictures, television wants people to watch, architects want people to appreciate their architecture, and musicians want people to listen, we want to do the same things with our teaching. Knowing the experience I want to create for my students, there were many bridges I was able to make between the work of art in teaching and the work of art in these other areas. This starts as soon as students walk into our classrooms.
As far as architecture, when a person walks into a room, they know quickly whether or not it was a pleasant place to be. A project comparing the compellingness of the environments of Dunkin Donuts versus Starbucks helped highlight the compellingness of an environment. I want my classroom to be a calm, clean, relaxing place to be for my students. I want them to feel comfortable there. This is important before the learning even starts.
As far as music, kids these days are all about music. Most students walk around constantly with their I-Pods and don’t go anywhere without them. After doing some research, reading, and listening, I came to see some of the characteristics that make music so compelling. The first and most important thing is the hook in music. A hook draws the listener in and makes them interested in the song. This related directly to the hook needed in teaching. Once students are in a comfortable and safe environment, something must grab their interest. Just like in popular music, a good hook will do this, whether it be a question, a picture, a video, an activity, or another kind of hook. Also in music, there are rhythm and patterns that establish a level of comfort. These same rhythms and patterns must exist in the classroom to make students feel comfortable.
After the learning is over, and kids leave my room, I want them to look forward to coming back. After watching an episode of the show What Not to Wear, I saw a woman who wanted to dress better so that a man would be interested in a second date with her. I want my class to be appealing so that students want a “second date” with it. It is important for us as to teacher to realize that if we want students to look forward to come back, we might have to consider a “make-over” of the way we have been doing things. Just because the way we have been doing things is “warm and comfortable,” it does not mean it is appealing to others.
Basically, we can learn a lot by thinking about ANYTHING that we find compelling. If we think about the qualities that make an experience compelling for us, we can undoubtedly apply this to our teaching to try to make experiences in school more compelling for the.
Finally, this course has pushed me to my limits technologically. I have been introduced to blogging, making videos, using youtube, using facebook, and some other new technologies. Although it was often difficult, I enjoyed this more than standard reading of textbook and writing paper reports. Isn’t this something that we as educators can use? Our students in many case of more knowledge of technology than we do. We can transform some of our old projects and reports into things the kids can enjoy more. I think my math classes would be more compelling for my students if I incorporate some of the technologies I have learned to use into my own assignments. My project about researching a famous mathematician will be a lot different next year!

A not so Imaginative Bridge: Education and Fashion

Okay, so this is definitely not the kind of imaginative bridge that we are supposed to be making, but...

I was watching Inside Edition tonight (or actually it was on while I was doing some other things), and I noticed that they spent an awful lot of time talking about Michelle Obama's fashion. From inauguration day, I feel like I have heard about this non-stop. I can not ever remember a first-lady's fashion getting this much attention. What makes people so obsessed with her fashion? It is obviously that Americans feel like they can relate to her. J. Crew is constantly selling out of clothes that the Obama's wear. Is fashion important for all leaders? If so, since we are leaders as teachers, is our fashion important?

As a fairly young teacher, I still wear many of the same clothes that my middle school kids wear. Many of the older teachers obviously do not. For example, we have all seen cheesy Christmas sweaters (actually, some teachers have these sweaters for every holiday). I have no problem with these, and actually cannot wait until I feel old enough to pull it off without being laughed at by kids. But does what we wear affect students' connection with us, like what Michelle Obama wears connects Americans with her?